Golf is a comparatively old sport and is growing in popularity on a worldwide bash. It is played with varying degrees of proficiency and satisfaction by persons of both sexes, and of diverse age, stature and physical ability. It is essentially an individual sport; while golfers may play in groups in various forms of competition, each golfer, as a rule, plays his own ball which is stationary on the ground, or on a tee in the ground, each time the golfer hits the ball. Golf differs from other club-and-ball games, such as tennis or baseball, in which the player seeks to strike a moving ball which has been hit or thrown by an opponent. Thus, the ability of a golfer to hit a golf ball effectively, straight and true along a desired path, is dependant almost entirely upon the golfer himself and upon the correctness and efficiency of his body position and his movements before and as the ball is struck with the desired golf club. Perhaps golf is such a popular sport because it is fundamentally an individual sport which can be played in a social context with others.
Over the years, a number of devices have been proposed or marketed to golfers as aids to establish an effective ball address stance, or an effective swing movement, or a combination of those objectives. Most of those golfers aid proposals have not been widely or long implemented or used for a number of reasons, one or more of which apply to a particular previously described for marketed aid. Those reasons include the following ones: the aid device is too complex, costly or cumbersome; the aid is based upon a transient vogue or fad; the aid is based upon the practice of one or a few successful well known golfers, whose practices may be unorthodox and well suited to them because of inherent personal abilities and opportunity to play frequently, but unsuited to other golfers of different abilities or who play infrequently; the aid assumes, incorrectly, the existence of a golfer who has standard height, height distribution and movement abilities, and so is not well usable by golfers who have different heights, height distribution characteristics or movement abilities; the aid is designed for effective use with only one or a few of the clubs a golfer will use and so does not address a wide range of shot situations; the aid is not readily portable or useable in the course of actual play, and so use is restricted to home or practice range contexts; the aid is structured for use by right handed golfers and is not suited for the 5% or so of golfers who play with left handed clubs; among other reasons.
A need exists for a simple, inexpensive and readily portable golfer's aid device which can be used, if desired, in the course of actual play in a quick and effective way for the majority of golf shots and with a wide range of golf clubs. A golfer's aid addressing that need should be useable equally well by left and right handed golfers of diverse ages, heights, height distribution characteristics and movement abilities. Such an aid should address or seek to deal with only a few aspects of a golfer's stance and/or swing, and should permit the user to comfortably adapt the balance of his stance and/or swing accordingly, consistent with an individual golfer's own personal physical characteristics or limitations. It should be an aid to as many as possible, not a constraint on the many based on the attributes and abilities of a few golfers.